A KEYNOTE ADDRESS DELIVERED AT A ROUNDTABLE ORGANISED BY CIVIL SOCIETY ACTION
COALITION ON EDUCATION FOR ALL (CSACEFA) ON 3RD JULY, 2006

1.
INTRODUCTION

The importance of education
to human beings cannot be over emphasized. Education is a human right that
should be accorded to all human beings solely by reason of being human. There
are a lot of international human rights instruments that provide for education
as a fundamental human right. These include the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (1948), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (1966) and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981). The
relationship between education and development is well established such that
education is a key index of development. It has been documented that schooling
improves productivity, health and reduces negative features of life such as
child labour as well as bringing about empowerment.[i]
This is why there has been a lot of emphasis particularly in recent times for
all citizens of the world to have access to basic education.

The importance and linkage of education to the development of any society is
well known. It is in recognition of this importance that the international
community and governments all over the world have made commitments for citizens
to have access to education. Meanwhile, it has been documented that across the
globe, there are inequalities in educational access and achievement as well as
high levels of absolute educational deprivation of both children and adults.[ii]
In order to confront this challenge, the rights based approach, which emphasizes
the participation of citizens, has been advocated. Meanwhile, the Declaration of
the World Conference on Education for All (WCEFA) which was made in Jomtien,
Thailand in 1990 stated clearly in Article 1 that every person – child, Youth
and Adult – shall be able to benefit from educational opportunities designed to
meet their basic needs. This declaration was reaffirmed at the World Summit for
Children also held in 1990, which stated that all children should have access to
basic education by the year 2000. The World Summit for Children placed a lot of
emphasis on raising the levels of female literacy. In a bid to achieve
education goals, the Dakar World Education Forum was held as a follow-up meeting
to the WCEFA where new sets of goals were set to be attained by the year 2015.
The goals include:

(i)Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education,
especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children;

(ii)Ensuring that by 2015 all children, with special emphasis on girls,
children in difficult circumstances and from ethnic minorities have access to
and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality;

(iii)Ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met
through equitable access to appropriate learning and life skills programmes;

(iv)Achieving a 50 percent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015,
especially for women and equitable access to basic and continuing education for
all adults;

(v)Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by
2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015, with a focus on
ensuring girl’s full and equal access to and achievement in basic education of
good quality;

(vi)Improving all aspects of the quality of education, and ensuring
excellence for all, so that recognized and reasonable learning outcomes are
achieved, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills.

Similarly, the Millennium Developments Goals (MDGs) adopted in September 2000
at the United Nations Millennium Declaration has two of the eight goals devoted
to education. They are goal 2 (to achieve universal primary education) and goal
3 (to promote gender equality and empower women).

Over the years, Nigeria has
expressed a commitment to education, in the belief that overcoming illiteracy
and ignorance will form a basis for accelerated national development. However, regardless of the
incontrovertible evidence that education is crucial to the development of the
community and the nation, there remain inequalities in access to education.
Despite its potential for leveling opportunities, education is in many countries
used to perpetrate inequalities. Millions of poor people and their children are
excluded from the processes and outcomes of education.

In this paper, we shall
describe the state of education in Nigeria and the challenges that flow
therefrom. We shall then discuss the perspectives of ActionAid International and
what can be done to improve that state of education in Nigeria.

2. THE STATE OF
EDUCATION IN NIGERIA

The severe decline of the oil market in the early eighties,
combined with the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), led to drastic
reductions in spending on education. The result was unpaid teacher salaries,
degradation of education facilities at all levels and strikes in universities
and schools. The end result is declining literacy rates in the country.

The poor state of education in Nigeria is aptly captured in
the National Empowerment Development Strategy as follows:

…the delivery of education in Nigeria has suffered from years
of neglect, compounded by inadequate attention to policy frameworks within the
sector. Findings from an ongoing educational sector analysis confirm the poor
state of education in Nigeria. The national literacy rate is currently 57
percent. Some 49 percent of the teaching force is unqualified. There are acute
shortages of infrastructure and facilities at all levels. Access to basic
education is inhibited by gender issues and sociocultural beliefs and practices,
among other factors. Wide disparities persist in educational standards and
learning achievements. The system emphasizes theoretical knowledge at the
expense of technical, vocational, and entrepreneurial education. School
curricula need urgent review to make them relevant and practice oriented.[iii]

Similarly, according to the Nigeria Millennium Development
Goals 2005 report,

Literacy level in the country has steadily and gradually
deteriorated, especially within the 15-24 years group. By 1999, the overall
literacy rate had declined to 64.1 % from 71.9 % in 1991. The trend was in the
same direction for male and female members of the 15-24 years age bracket. Among
the male, the rate declined from 81.35 % in 1991 to 69.8 % in 1999. The decline
among the female was from 62.49 % to 59.3 % during the same period.[iv]

Statistics indicate glaring imbalances against girls in
enrolment, attendance and completion rates in all levels of education in
Nigeria, particularly in the northern parts of the country, due to a variety of
socio-cultural and religious factors. It means that the rights of millions of
children, especially girls, are violated. It is estimated that 7.3 million
school age children are out of primary school majority of them girls.

Meanwhile, the education system in Nigeria is guided by the
broad National objectives which are articulated in the National Policy on
Education. At its inception in 1999, in response to the challenges in the
primary education sector, the present administration launched the Universal
basic Education Programme. Specifically, the Universal Basic Education Act
(2004) and the Child Rights Act provide the legal framework for the
implementation of the Programme, which makes basic education not only free but
also compulsory. In addition, as a signatory to the 2000 World Education
Conference, and the 6 Dakar Goals towards achieving Education for All (EFA),
Government has also established a National EFA Coordination unit under the
Federal Ministry of Education mandated to prepare a National Action Plan for the
delivery of EFA in Nigeria.

3. CHALLENGES FACING EDUCATION IN NIGERIA

There are a lot of challenges facing Nigeria and making it difficult for good
quality education that is empowering and capable of bringing about sustainable
development to be provided. In this paper, we shall attempt to highlight some of
the challenges. The first and pperhaps the greatest challenge
facing education is inadequate funding by federal, states and local governments,
to the extent that funding has been in response to conditionalities imposed by
international financial institutions (IFIs). Statistics show that federal
government expenditure on education between 1997 and 2000 has been below 10% of
overall expenditure. The national expenditure on education can not be computed
because various states expenditure on education can not be determined, in
relation to the UNESCO recommendation of 26% of national budgets.

Graph 1: Federal Government Spending on Education.

Secondly, there is the problem of access which has attracted a lot of attention
particularly in recent years. Studies have been conducted on the reasons why
people do not go to school; the people that are usually excluded and the impact
of the introduction of user fees. A study conducted by Action Aid published in
2003 showed that the reason why pupils do not go to primary schools include
costs of schooling, opportunity costs, illness and hunger, limited economic
costs of education and low quality of schooling.[v]
The costs of schooling include the costs of books, stationery and basic
equipment, uniforms, admission fees, registration and examination fees,
contribution towards building and maintenance fund, construction fees,
transportation, mid-day meals, Parents/Teachers Association (PTA) fees, sports
fees, library fees and extra tuition fees. The opportunity cost for parents
sending children to school is the children’s time that could have been of
economic importance to the family either in terms of income generating
activities or in supporting the functioning of the household. Illness and hunger
either of the children themselves or members of the family can prevent children
from going to school. Limited economic benefits in terms of the fact that those
who have completed school have no jobs do dissuade people from going to school.
Finally, low quality of schooling particularly with regards to poor physical
infrastructures, lack of motivated staff, poor utilization of resources, content
of curriculum, nature of teaching methods and relationship of the school and
teachers with the wider community can negatively impact on the urge to go to
school.[vi]

It has been documented that there are categories of children who tend to be
excluded from the formal schooling system- children from the poorest families,
the landless, working children, children of minority groups, children of migrant
or pastoralist families, orphans, children affected by HIV/AIDS and those with
physical or mental disabilities.[vii]This is in accord with researches that have shown that whenever user fees are
introduced in the provision of social services, the utilization by the rich
increases while utilization by the poor decreases.[viii]
In Malawi for instance, two years after fees were introduced into the school
system in the 1980s, enrollment rates fell by over 5 percent.[ix]
Conversely, it has been documented that whenever user fees are abolished,
enrollment increases.[x]
An example is Tanzania which eliminated fees for primary education in January,
2002 with the support of the World Bank and enrollments surged by as much as 1.5
million children. It should be noted that formally scrapping fees without a
major increase in public financing can have a disastrous impact on quality and
is unsustainable. It is therefore necessary that whenever fees are abolished,
there should be revenue and budget reforms and the need to train and employ more
teachers, build new classroom and provide more facilities to meet the increased
enrolment.

Thirdly, there is the problem of poor infrastructures and
lack of teaching and learning materials. A huge number of primary, secondary and
tertiary school buildings and facilities are dilapidated and unfriendly to
pupils. The environment of teaching and learning is not conducive. Fourthly,
there is the problem of irrelevant curriculum: It is a shame that 46
years after independence, our children are still being taught that Mungo Park
discovered River Niger. He may have discovered it for Europeans but certainly
not to Nigerians who were fishing and collecting water from River Niger before
Mungo park came to Nigeria.

It is interesting
to note that when parents find persons who have received good education unable
to get employment in the formal sector, they are dissuaded from sending their
children to school. Similarly, parents and guardians would be reluctant to send
their children and wards to dilapidated school buildings, to be taught by
ill-motivated teachers. They would be reluctant to send their children and wards
to school if the education that the kids are getting is not in any way relevant
to their circumstances, or if there is a danger that they can be abused by
teachers or members of the community on their way to school.

4. ACTIONAID
PERSPECTIVE ON EDUCATION

Please permit me at this
point to share with you ActionAid perspectives on education and the approach we
have utilized in Nigeria to contribute to improvement of the state of education.
As an organization, ActionAid’s focus is on basic education, as defined in
“The Compulsory, Free, Universal Basic Education Act, 2004 and Other Related
Matters”. Under the Act, basic education refers to early childhood care and
education and nine years of formal education.

But we also
recognize the potential of increased adult literacy to enhance parents’,
particularly mothers’ appreciation of the benefits of education, and their
ability to actually support their children’s formal and informal learning
processes. We also appreciate the fact that only when tertiary institutions
produce graduates who are relevant to the community with their skills and
commitment can the benefits of education can perceptible, and provide the
incentive for the poor to send their children to school.

The AAIN vision for education is: A Nigeria in which every
girl, boy, woman and man is able to achieve access to free quality relevant
basic education. The AAIN mission is: To work with the poor and excluded
in Nigeria to claim their rights to quality basic education.

AAIN education programming has been shaped by ActionAid’s
Global Strategy (Right to End Poverty), the Africa Regional Strategy (Another
Africa is Possible), the AAIN’s Strategy (Fighting Poverty in the Midst of
Plenty), the National Policy on Education, the Dakar Framework of Action and the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGS) set by the United Nations as International
Development Targets (IDTs) at the Millennium Summit in 2000.

We at ActionAid believe
that our resources can only make an impact if they are deployed very
strategically. In order to confront this challenge, the rights based approach,
which emphasizes the participation of citizens, has been advocated. As noted
above, the right to education is enshrined in many international human rights
covenants including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (ICESCR), the Dakar Framework for Action, the Convention on the Rights of
the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The right of all Nigerians to education
has always been provided for in constitutions. Indeed, the UBE Act of 2004 makes
basic education not only free, but compulsory. It has been argued that these
rights are necessary for people to live meaningful lives and therefore there is
a great need to make them (right to education in particular and socioeconomic
rights in general) justiciable. In any case, the African Charter on Human and
Peoples’ Rights in article 17 provides that every individual shall have the
right to education. The African Charter has been domesticated in some countries
and therefore has the full force of law. Unfortunately, however, in many of
these constitutions, these rights are not justiciable.

ActionAid seeks to build capacity building among local civil
society capacity in the areas of programming, policy analysis and advocacy,
campaigning, lobbying, gender analysis, budget tracking, strategic planning and
organisational development. It has, since 1999, supported action
research and related efforts that have deepened our understanding of the arena
and the issues, as a result of which the issues/challenges in basic education,
the magnitude and preponderance of problems, the typologies, underlying factors
and effective responses have been articulated.ActionAid is able to map
challenges against opportunities for the provision of free quality basic
education in Nigeria.

ActionAid International Nigeria has popularized the use of REFLECT (an
acronym for Regenerated Freirean Literacy through Empowering Community
Techniques) throughout Nigeria. Today, many development partners, government
agencies (e.g NMEC) and civil society organisations are using the REFLECT
approach or adaptations of it in programming for education. The REFLECT approach
enables adults to imbibe the skills for reflection on their circumstances and
the building of critical masses of individuals who are able to critically
analyze the environments and draw up action plans to address the issues and
problems.

ActionAid has generated a compendium of good practices, as a
tool for shared learning. We have produced case studies on accountability,
transformation and mobilization issues in education. These have been
disseminated through newsletters and other forms of documentation to partners.

ActionAid’s engagement with key stakeholders reinforces their
commitments to the achievement of EFA in Nigeria. ActionAid supports civil
society to leverage space for promoting the voices of the poor within the
parameters provided by the EFA Framework for Action.

It promotes analysis of the Education Sector, such that
activities feed into the larger macro-economic framework and the priorities,
conditionalities and limitations that constitute the context for interventions.

AAIN has actively facilitated or been a part of teams
facilitating national campaigns within such frameworks as the Nigeria Social
Forum and Global Call to Action against Poverty.

However, our work is often constrained by a number of
factors. Among these is the very limited experience of most of the local
organisations that we work with, which means weak absorptive capacities. A lot
of time and resources have first to be spent on building institutional capacity.
This naturally tends to slow the pace for programme implementation. But there
can never be an alternative to institutional capacity building, because it is
critical for sustainability.

In adopting the rights-based approach, we have to contend
with the pervading culture of silence, complacency, poverty and hunger. We
therefore have always to strike a balance between rights promotion and delivery
of tangibles in project communities.

At ActionAid, we have to deal with donors with purposes and
sets of accountabilities as well as modes of operations that are different from
our ways. While, for example, AAI is more process-oriented in programming,
funding agencies tend to be task/output-oriented. Some donors may also have
clauses and conditionalities attached to their assistance that constrain the
achievement of EFA.

In conclusion, we agree with the argument that if we are to achieve development
goals, then Nigeria must change course, especially in terms of using its
economic development frameworks to mitigate the adverse effects of development
philosophies and macroeconomic policies from IFIs.

5. WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

From the above analysis, it is clear to us that the state of education in
Nigeria is lamentably poor. There are a lot of challenges facing the education
sector. Meanwhile, there are perspectives that could be utilized to transform
the sector. It has been documented that with current trends, the target of
achieving universal primary education will not be attained in many countries
(including Nigeria). The UNDP documents that:

If current trends continue, the target of achieving universal primary education
by 2015 will be missed by at least a decade. There will be 47 million children
out of school in 2015, 19 million of them in sub-saharan Africa. Forty six
countries are going backwards or will not meet the target until after 2040.
These countries account for 23 million of the 110 million children currently out
of school in developing countries.[xi]

In trying to look at what is to be done, the position of ActionAid International
is very clear and unambiguous

All children should have access to quality education within an equitable system.
Schools should be places where children’s rights especially those of girls, are
respected, injustices are challenged and lives transformed. By attending school,
children can acquire the confidence and knowledge to better access and make use
of information that can improve their lives. The dignity and self-confidence
gained can help them to challenge discriminatory and biased gender roles and
relations. We know that education can also provide girls with the knowledge and
confidence needed to help reduce maternal and child mortality, violence and
HIV/AIDS transmission. Furthermore, good quality education is essential for
enabling countries to achieve the level of economic growth required to tackle
poverty and make sustainable development a reality.[xii]

In our view, what
needs to be done to face the challenges of Education in Nigeria include:

Adequate resourcing which will be
needed to build new schools, train more teachers etc

Implementation of the UBE Act and
ensuring that all forms of user fees are abolished

Dealing with the quality issues
including size of classes, number of teachers and provision of materials.

Massive investment in
infrastructures in all levels of education

Promotion of child friendly and
teacher friendly school environment

Respect and protection of the
rights of children in school including protection from violence in schools
especially of the girl child.

Tracking of resources to ensure
proper, adequate and accountable utilization of resources budgeted for
education

Improvement of teacher quality
through employment of professional and qualified teachers, in service
training and retraining and implementation of the teacher salary structure

Dealing with the HIV/AIDS
pandemic in the education sector

Completion, popularization and
utilization of EFA plan

Empowerment approach to education

6.
CONCLUSION

In conclusion, we agree with the argument that if we are to achieve development
goals, then the world must change course especially in terms of economic
development philosophies and macroeconomic policies particularly those initiated
and inspired by IMF. There is no doubt that the state of education in Nigeria is
lamentably poor and there are a lot of challenges. But there are perspectives
and approaches that can be utilized to turn the situation around. What needs to
be done is clear. We need to rise up to the challenges and change the course of
events in Nigeria and put education in a right footing. That is the only sure
way to sustainable development.

ENDNOTES

[i]EFA Global Monitoring Report (2002),
Education for All: Is the World on Track. Paris, UNESCO

[viii]
Igbuzor, O. (1992), Drug Revolving Fund as a Strategy to achieve Health
for All Nigerians: A Case Study of University of Maiduguri Teaching
Hospital. An unpublished Masters of Public administration thesis.

[x]
Coalition for Health and Education Rights(2002), User Fees: The Right to
Education and Health Denied. A Policy brief by the Coalition for Health
and Education Rights for the UN Special Session on Children, New York,
May 2002.

[xi]
UNDP (2005), International Cooperation at a Crossroads: Aid, Trade &
Security in an unequal World. Human Development Report 2005

[xii]
ActionAid International (2005), Contradicting Commitments: How the
Achievement of EFA is being undermined by the International Monetary
Fund (IMF).